Suchergebnisse

Foundations : history, concept and subject of European criminal law -- The protection of fundamental rights in Europe -- Europeanised substantive criminal law in the broader sense (Council of Europe and EU) -- Procedural law : police and judicial cooperation -- Institutionalisation -- General bibliography

Over the years the European Union has expanded its legislation in the area of criminal law, criminal procedure and co-operation in criminal matters. This process led to an endless number of framework decisions, directives, regulations and other legal instruments. The fourth edition of 'Materials on European Criminal Law' is a collection of legal instruments including all legal materials relevant for the practice of the Member States of the European Union in one concise volume. It incorporates the most relevant instruments in criminal law, and includes the most recent, such as the Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the United Kingdom

The creation of an economically integrated Europe, based on free circulation across open borders, has probably facilitated an increase in transnational crime. One response to this phenomenon has been to try to create an integrated European criminal law. But legal integration will not magically solve all the problems related to transnational crime. Indeed, it may create problems of its own. By favouring efficiency (that is, repression) over legitimacy (the protection of fundamental rights), it favours a criminal justice policy oriented towards 'security'. By imposing the same rules throughout Europe, it disturbs the internal consistency of national legal systems. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of legal integration, facilitated by new legal instruments such as framework decisions, continues to develop. We might therefore ask ourselves, as an introduction, why this is so.

Acquiring competences for the creation of criminal offences begs the question of legitimacy. The European criminal justice system already has such competences and many instruments define criminal offences. The legality principle is a cornerstone doctrine for legitimising criminal norms in Western legal systems. Despite already being part of the European legal order, this principle lacks a coherent theoretical and normative blueprint that shows how it should be conceived in European criminal law. This book develops such a theory for the principle of legality in European criminal law. The focus is on the legitimising and normative functions of this principle. The reader shall find a proposal for a theoretical framework that legitimises European criminal law and the accompanying normative requirements of criminal liability. Questions such as the precision of European and national implementing norms, the position of case law as a source of law and the scope of interpretative powers of European and national courts are addressed. The book uses comparative research into national systems and modern theories of criminal law to build a framework for the principle of legality. This is then instilled with special characteristics of the European legal order, such as the multi-level system of authorities and sources, pluralism and freedom of movement

"The Cambridge Companion to European Criminal Law is of interest for a broad range of readers, from law students and the interested public, to specialized practitioners and legal scholars. Its essays, written by renowned international experts, combine the highest academic standards with comprehensibility"--

Current article takes a closer look at the dialogue between the Strasbourg and the Luxembourg courts on the interpretation of the ne bis in idem principle and analyses how it influenced the (non)acceptance of the possibility to conduct both, criminal and administrative penal proceedings, against the same person for the same acts. It starts with the pre-Zolotukhin jurisprudence of the European Court for Human Rights and analyses how the Luxembourg interpretation of Article 54 CISA had a major influence on the change in the way the Strasbourg court perceived the possibility to conduct both, criminal and administrative penal proceedings, against the same person for the same acts. It further explores how the Luxembourg court followed the way indicated by Zolotukhin and accepted the stance of the Strasbourg court on the possibility of duplication of criminal and administrative penal proceedings against the same person for the same acts under the ne bis in idem protection afforded to individuals by Article 50 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Finally, it analyses whether the recent shift in the Strasbourg court's jurisprudence, which was also followed by the Luxembourg court, means that the ne bis in idem principle in European criminal law has, on the question of the duplication of criminal and administrative penal proceedings, basically come to the positions which were dominant in the pre-Zolotukhin jurisprudence.